LEADING holiday firm Sunset Holidays is leaving Bolton - with the loss of 111 jobs in the town.

The operation at Manchester Road, Kearsley, is to close down by the end of the year.

The shutdown is part of a major re-organisation of the company and bosses have pledged that everyone currently employed at Kearsley will be offered a new job elsewhere.

Tour operating work currently carried out at Kearsley is being relocated across the Pennines to Bradford.

The closure will mark the end of a 21year association with the area for Sunset Holidays, which was founded in Swinton in 1978.

Sales director Denis Wormwell said: "We have been searching for suitable premises as close as possible to the centre of all our northern locations for over seven months."

The news comes just days after Sunset's parent company Thomas Cook was given approval to merge with the Carlson Leisure Group.

Mr Wormwell said: "Whilst the Bradford site is a little further away from Kearsley than we would have preferred, it is ideal to support the growth plans of the enlarged organisation coming out of the merger."

He added: "We have terrific staff here and we are extremely keen to retain everyone if at all possible."

Relocation

Mr Wormwell said that about 20 staff already live on the north east side of Manchester.

He said that a "generous" relocation scheme was being set up to help others transfer to working in Yorkshire.

Some reservations and administration staff will start to move from Kearsley from June. Most other departments will move between October and December.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.